March 06, 2002

Oh my, Yosemite.

Matt and I just got back from Yosemite last night. What an amazing place! Everywhere you look you see a postcard-like picture.

Our first day we hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls (aka Yosemite Peak), which was a rather steep climb of about 8.8 miles roundtrip with about a 2800 ft elevation gain. Although steep, the trail was incredibly well maintained which made the climb a lot easier. I was amazed at the amount of work they put into creating this trail -- huge clusters of rocks placed to create a level surface.

Even more amazing was the landscape. Nearly everywhere you look are flat faces of rock jutting hundreds of feet straight up. Down below is Yosemite Valley, a flat area sperced with clusters of trees and interconnected rivers. The main attraction is Yosemite Falls, a massive waterfall that is made all the more beautiful by the sheer rock faces that abutt it. At the bottom of the waterfall is a giant "snowcone". I guess the moisture that builds up on the rock walls freezes over night. When the sun hits it in the morning, the ice cracks off and falls to create a thunderous roar and the "snowcone" seen at the bottom of the fall. We tried to get up early enough to witness this event, but unfortunately we missed it. However, the sites we did see were more than satisfying.

I would recomment to anything the he should at least drive through Yosemite. I've never seen anything like it.

While camping at night you have to put all your food in bear-proof metal containers. There's signs everywhere about these bears, so they were definitely on our mind. We didn't have a lantern, just flashlights. So as we were sitting at our campsite, we hear a rustling by the food locker. We're shinning our flashlights all around, admittedly more than a little freaked out. "Whoa!" Matt exclaims.

It was a raccoon. There was a whole possee of them that appeared to be much more of a nuesance than the nonexistant (at least to us) bears. One hopped up on our picnic table behind me while I was sitting there. We saw another one jump into our neighbor's car while he wasn't looking. When he started yelling at the raccoon to scare it away, the raccoon calmly looked up, stopped, then turned around and grabbed a bag of chips before it left the car! They certainly have no fear of humans.